him her hand.)

CRICHTON (who is much shaken). My lady--a valet's hand!

AGATHA. I had no idea you would feel it so deeply; why did you do it?

(CRICHTON is too respectful to reply.)

LADY MARY (regarding him). Crichton, I am curious. I insist upon an
answer.

CRICHTON. My lady, I am the son of a butler and a lady's-maid--perhaps
the happiest of all combinations, and to me the most beautiful thing in
the world is a haughty, aristocratic English house, with every one kept
in his place. Though I were equal to your ladyship, where would be the
pleasure to me? It would be counterbalanced by the pain of feeling that
Thomas and John were equal to me.

CATHERINE. But father says if we were to return to nature--

CRICHTON. If we did, my lady, the first thing we should do would be to
elect a head. Circumstances might alter cases; the same person might
not be master; the same persons might not be servants. I can't say as to
that, nor should we have the deciding of it. Nature would decide for us.

LADY MARY. You seem to have thought it all out carefully, Crichton.

CRICHTON. Yes, my lady.

CATHERINE. And you have done this for us, Crichton, because you thought
that--that father needed to be kept in his place?

CRICHTON. I should prefer you to say, my lady, that I have done it for
the house.

AGATHA. Thank you, Crichton. Mary, be nicer to him. (But LADY MARY has
begun to read again.) If there was any way in which we could show our
gratitude.

CRICHTON. If I might venture, my lady, would you kindly show it by
becoming more like Lady Mary. That disdain is what we like from
our superiors. Even so do we, the upper servants, disdain the lower
servants, while they take it out of the odds and ends.

(He goes, and they bury themselves in cushions.)

AGATHA. Oh dear, what a tiring day.

CATHERINE. I feel dead. Tuck in your feet, you selfish thing.

(LADY MARY is lying reading on another couch.)

LADY MARY. I wonder what he meant by circumstances might alter cases.

AGATHA (yawning). Don't talk, Mary, I was nearly asleep.

LADY MARY. I wonder what he meant by the same person might not be
master, and the same persons might not be servants.

CATHERINE. Do be quiet, Mary, and leave it to nature; he said nature
would decide.

LADY MARY. I wonder--

(But she does not wonder very much. She would wonder more if she knew
what was coming. Her book slips unregarded to the floor. The ladies are
at rest until it is time to